Visiting Dawn
by SLs-short-words
Summary: When Ryan delays introducing Taylor to his mother, she takes matters into her own hands. Set post Season 4.


Thank you in advance for any reviews/comments. It's always appreciated and motivation for the next story.

As always, I own nothing...

* * *

**Visiting Dawn**

Sometimes, Taylor realises, she is a little too quick to act. Like in the sixth grade when they were learning about some economics related subject and the topic of child labour came up and Taylor had a petition full of signatures less than two hours later before she realised that she should really make sure a company does employ children before starting a petition against them.

Or take for example the summer before her first year of high school when she spent months planning homecoming and the kick-off carnival only to learn that she wouldn't be part of, much less president of social committee, and that very few freshmen were part of the committee.

Or there was right at this moment when Ryan had told her that she would meet his mother eventually and that hadn't been soon enough for her so she'd hopped on a plane without telling him and travelled halfway across the country to meet his mother. Now was a perfect example of when Taylor acted before thinking.

"You want that topped off?"

Taylor's eyes widen as she looks up from where she'd been staring at her empty plate. She nods, unable to find any words.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" the waitress asks her, and Taylor nods quickly, awkwardly. Maybe if she had waited until Ryan introduced her to his mother, the woman in front of her would have called her sweetie, but with affection rather than worry lacing her voice.

"You look kind of... skittish, I guess is the word," Dawn tells her as she tops of Taylor's coffee.

"Yeah," Taylor answers.

"Okay... You let me know if you want anything else."

Taylor panics as she sees the woman start to walk away. Her mouth opens and closes quickly as she sees the purpose of her trip slipping through her fingers.

"I'm Taylor," she calls out, louder than she intends. "Taylor Townsend. I'm... I'm your son's girlfriend. Or was, or..." She sighs again. "I'm Taylor."

"You're Ryan's Taylor," Dawn says softly with a nod of her head.

"Ryan's Taylor," the girl repeats.

Dawn's eyes travel the room in confusion, looking for something—perhaps Ryan—to explain to her what's going on. She finds nothing.

"I get off in an hour if you want to..."

"I'd love to," Taylor answers with a chirp and a nod, already rising from her seat. She leaves money on the counter and takes a few steps back. Her smile widens, uncomfortable but hopefully reassuring. "I'll be back in an hour."

Dawn can do nothing but nod as Taylor waves and leaves the restaurant.

* * *

Taylor arrives an hour later. She looks at her watch nervously though she knows she isn't late. Thankfully, she had only packed one suitcase for the trip, and so she only had six outfits to try on time and again before finally settling on the blouse and skirt she wore for one of her college interviews. She is fairly certain she's more nervous at the moment than she was at any of her interviews for higher learning.

"Is Ryan here?" Dawn asks as she pulls on a sweater.

Taylor's shoulder's slump as she draws out her words. "No. He doesn't exactly know that I'm here. I don't think he really wanted us to meet."

"He didn't?" Dawn's face drops as she lets her purse fall the length of its strap, manoeuvring herself and Taylor around the building. "He must really like you. I've got a bit of a record for ruining good things for Ryan. I can't really blame him..."

"Oh no," Taylor protests, her arm quickly reaching out for Dawn. "I think this one is all me. I have a record of not being—well, I guess stable, would be a good word for it. I don't think it's you at all. Ryan is always talking about how proud he is of you every time he gets a letter or talks to you on the phone. He's psyched about the wedding, and you going back to school, and... Yeah, no... Definitely not you."

"Really? I... I don't think my boys have ever been proud of me."

"They really are. Well, Ryan really is. I don't really know about Trey. They don't talk very much."

"That's probably best. Trey does have a knack for getting in trouble. But Ryan though, he always found a way of making it work..."

"Really?" Taylor asks with a hint of a smile.

"Sure, I mean, I don't know many kids who can get roped into stealing a car and wind up with a new family that takes such great care of them. But even before that, I mean... it was Trey that made Ryan join his first musical."

"I heard a whisper about a musical once," Taylor says, feeling the grin widen on her face as she follows Dawn into a restaurant a few blocks from the diner where the woman works. "I would never have thought Trey had anything to do with it, though."

"It was a bet. Ryan lost. When Trey heard that Theresa was going to be in a school musical, he thought it was the perfect opportunity to torture his little brother. I'm not even sure what the competition was, but Ryan lost and Trey made him join a musical."

"And it turned out well?"

Dawn shrugged with a chuckle. "Depends what you consider well. Ryan's not exactly a musical genius and there was no way they were ever going to give him a lead, but somehow, he always managed to get a part where he got to kiss a girl. I think he kept joining musicals after the first one because it gave him a chance to have his first kiss. He kept blaming it on Theresa, but even she didn't have that strong a hold on him."

"He must have been adorable in front of all those people."

"Yeah, I guess." A shadow crosses Dawn's faces as she turns her attention to her menu. "I worked a lot. I never really got to see him on stage. Theresa's mom though, she took pictures. So, I have some of those."

Taylor smiles awkwardly and looks down at her menu. She falters for words because the only events her mother ever attended were those where there was a hope she would meet rich single men. She'd hit on the latest Dean of discipline at Taylor's graduation, sending an uncomfortable shiver of déjà-vu down the girl's spine. Taylor clears her throat and tries to shake away the memory.

"Ryan read a poem for me in a bookstore once." Taylor blushes and ducks her head. "Well, I guess he didn't really read it to me. But he wrote it and was going to read it to me. I read it for him because I had to make a choice and Henri-Michel was right there and all those women were just judging him, which I guess I had kind of been doing as well, but I don't think you can really blame me for that when you think about everything I'd been through before, not that he hadn't been through a lot as well, but... Anyway... It was..." Taylor's head falls to one side and a small smile plays on her lips at the memory. "It was really sweet."

Dawn laughs as she shakes her head, unsure if she's more amused at Ryan's antics, or at the girl he seems to have found for himself, so different from any of the other women she has ever seen him with.

"Sweet is one thing that boy has always been. He wrote me a poem when he was seven. It was for mother's day and he was really happy because my latest boyfriend had just hit the road so I was spending a lot more time with him than I usually do and I was always clean. He wrote it up on this big cardboard heart that Theresa had helped him with at school. It said 'I love you mom, because you're so sweet. You tuck me in and make me food to eat. I love you mom, with my whole heart. Lots more than Trey and Theresa and Bart.' Isn't that cute?"

"Aww..." Taylors face softens at the story, then suddenly scrunches in confusion. "Okay, but, who's Bart?"

"There is no Bart," Dawn answers with a laugh and a shake of her head. "I think it's just the only word he knew that rhymed with heart."

"Bart was the name of the frog in Mrs. Kennedy's class." Both women look up at the sound of the new voice, Taylor too shocked to close her mouth and scoot over as Ryan sits next to her in the booth. "He was the pet frog that everyone had to care for one day in the month."

"So you loved me more than a frog?"

"That's right. I didn't even like Trey more than I did the frog, so you should be please."

"Oh, it's grand," Dawn answers with a laugh.

"Young boys often impart a great deal of their affection on animals that fascinate them such as reptiles or bugs. It's the real reason why the prince is a frog in fairy tales and bugs are winged fairies. It's trying to help little boys and girls find a common interest despite their differences."

Ryan smiles as he listens to Taylor, her eyes wide and her voice even and monotonous as she speaks.

"You shouldn't write things on your blog if you don't want me to find you."

"You read my blog?"

"Only the latest entries to figure out where you were. I've learned my lesson about reading about your past." Ryan passes a hand over Taylor's hair and drops a kiss on her forehead as she continues to sit still, stunned and silent. "So, have you guys ordered yet?"

Dawn smiles and hands her menu over to her son. "We were just about to."

* * *

"He nearly burnt the house down," Dawn tells Taylor with a laugh as Ryan scratches the back of his neck.

"That must have stunk for weeks..."

"I didn't know how to make popcorn other than in the microwave," Ryan groans in protest. "It sounded simple enough. How was I to know that when people said it tasted better when they made it over the stove that they didn't mean in the bags?"

"Aww, you couldn't have," Taylor coos, her hand rubbing up and down Ryan's back.

Dawn smiles as she turns the corner and motions toward her car. "Well, I guess this is where I leave you kids. You have an early flight tomorrow, so we'll just say good-bye here and I'll see you both in a month."

Taylor hugs Dawn as she starts to walk away from the pair, sending Ryan a confused look over his mother's shoulder.

"You will," Ryan answers as he moves in for his hug. "We'll see you later, mom."

They part, Taylor holding on to Ryan's belt loops as he opens the hotel door for them, steps away from Dawn's car. The same hotel he stayed in whenever he visited his mother, just like the restaurant where he found the pair of women was the same restaurant his mother always took him to on his first night in town.

"What did she mean?" Taylor asks as she moves around Ryan and flops down on the bed. "You know, about seeing us in a month?"

"She meant that she will see us in a month when she comes to visit me and the Cohens for a little vacation."

"I didn't know she was coming in a month."

"That's because a month is a long time away, and a month of you worrying about making a good impression with my mother, is more than I wanted to walk into."

Ryan drops down on the bed next to Taylor, his arms going around her waist and his head buried in her shoulder.

"True, but still. I wouldn't think Seth would be able to keep something like this to himself."

Ryan laughs and shakes his head. "You think I can handle a month of Seth worrying about doing something stupid while my mom is in town? Please. You, I can live with—you're smart and beautiful and great in bed. Seth—annoying, weird looking, and I don't want to know."

"I know..." Taylor sings in a high voice.

Ryan's head shoots up as he looks her over. "You what?"

"Well, from what Summer says. Not from personal experience. Please, that attraction lasted less than with Sung Ho. Though he had the advantage that he could do this thing with his—"

"All right, all right, sharing time is over. Let's just leave it at you can be annoying for a month and I'll deal, but that Seth can't get any more annoying, or I might hurt him."

Taylor smiles at Ryan before letting her head fall back against the mattress. She reaches out and strokes his hair as he lays against her, slightly on top of her, their chests moving against each other as they breathe to two different, complementary rhythms.

"I thought you didn't want me to meet your mother. I thought you were ashamed of me."

"I thought I told you that now wasn't a good time and that you would understand that I had a huge final to write this morning before I came out here chasing for you and that I'm going to be more worried about finding out what my grades are in the coming weeks than I need to be about making sure that you aren't nervous about meeting my mother."

"Oh." Taylor's mouth drops open. "Yeah, I didn't quite catch that."

"I see."

"Did you really read my blog and chase me halfway across the country?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"And you're really not mad at me for making you leave Berkeley to chase me down?"

Ryan raises his head and tries his hardest to bite back the smile that wants to play on his lips. "I didn't quite say that."

"You said that I was smart and beautiful and great in bed."

"I did," he agrees with a nod. "But I've had to chase you across the country now. I'm not sure that still stands."

"Really? Well," Taylor shifts from under him until he's lying next to her, watching, "I can give you my presentation on the evolution of phallic symbols in modern art that I had to present last week. It'll remind you I'm smart."

Ryan shakes his head. "I know it by heart. I heard you rehearse it so many times, I could give your presentation."

"I can go get all prettied up in the bathroom and put on a great dress so you can remember how beautiful I am."

Again, Ryan shakes his head. "You'll just have to undo it all later, and then we won't get to sleep until way too late. We'll be exhausted tomorrow morning, you'll scold me for objectifying women... I don't see where this is a good plan."

"Fine, then I really have no choice. I'll have to tackle the third option and remind you how great I am in bed."

"Tackle, huh?" Ryan asks as he reaches for her.

"Aw, so this one you don't complain about..."

"Well, you do what you have to do. I did fly across the country—"

"Halfway across the country," Taylor corrects.

"—just for you. And this bed doesn't even vibrate. Who gets a cheap motel room with a bed that doesn't vibrate?"

"I can also help you out with that."

"How?"

"Oh," Taylor says innocently as she reaches for the buttons of Ryan's shirt, "I'm sure I can find some way to make the bed vibrate."

Ryan reaches up and wraps his arms around Taylor until he can twist them so she lies beneath him on the bed. "You are so smart."

"Ooh, there's one. Two more to go."


End file.
